RESEARCH REPORT #005 A Climate for Change in the UN Security Council? Member States’ Approaches to the Climate-Security Nexus JUDITH NORA HARDT / ALINA VIEHOFF | 07/2020 IFSH Research Report #005 Table of Contents Abstract 4 Funding 5 1. Introduction 6 2. Climate change and security at the United Nations Security Council 9 3. Mapping the climate-security nexus: Analytical background and approach 12 3.1. Security Studies: Security concepts, perceptions and analytical categories 12 3.2. Climate-security nexus: Evolution and approaches in research 14 3.3. Analytical approach 16 4. Climate-security nexus in UNSC member states: Case studies 18 4.1. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Belgium 19 4.2. Findings on the climate-security nexus in China 24 4.3. Findings on the climate-security nexus in the Dominican Republic 29 4.4. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Estonia 34 4.5. Findings on the climate-security nexus in France 38 4.6. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Germany 44 4.7. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Indonesia 50 4.8. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Niger 56 4.9. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Russia 62 4.10. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 68 4.11. Findings on the climate-security nexus in South Africa 74 4.12. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Tunisia 79 4.13. Findings on the climate-security nexus in the United Kingdom 83 4.14. Findings on the climate-security nexus in the United States 90 4.15. Findings on the climate-security nexus in Vietnam 96 5. Cross-cutting research findings, recommendations and outlook 103 5.1. Climate-security nexus findings in the traditional security sector 104 5.2. Climate-security nexus findings in the extended security sector 106 5.3. Climate-security nexus findings and existential security 107 5.4. Positions and proposals: Climate change and the UNSC 109 2 A Climate for Change in the UN Security Council? 5.5. Recommendations for the UNSC context 110 5.6. Limitations and outlook 111 Acknowledgments 113 References 114 Bibliography 114 Case studies primary sources 121 3 IFSH Research Report #005 Abstract This research report is the first to systematically engage with the growing political agenda of the climate-security nexus and to place a particular focus on the relationship between the state and the only international organ with a mandate to maintain international peace and security: the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Discussions that have been ongoing since 2007, scattered governmental positions and the difficulty of achieving an overview of the various understandings, topics, concerns and responses of the UNSC member states in relation to the climate-security nexus all indicate a need to address this topic. This report therefore assesses and maps if and how the UNSC members acknowledge the linkages between climate change and security and how they position themselves with respect to these debates in the UNSC. With a large international network of interdisciplinary and country-specialized partner scientists, the analysis relies on an extensive spectrum of official primary sources from member state governments, various ministry strategies (such as those addressing security and climate change), UNSC documents and interdisciplinary academic literature on the climate-security nexus. It is located in the context of substantiated planetary climate emergencies and existential threats as well as urgent calls for action from the UN and member state representatives, scientific networks in Earth System Sciences and youth protests. Based on broad empirical research findings, this report concludes that all 15 current UNSC member states acknowledge the climate-security nexus in complex, changing and partly country-dependent ways. The report formulates an outlook and recommendations for decision-makers and scholars with a particular focus on strengthening the science-policy interface and dialogue and emphasizing the urgent need for institutional, multilateral and scientifically- informed change. It also illustrates how essential it is for the UNSC to recognize and adapt institutional working methods to the interrelations of climate change and security and their effects as a cross-cutting issue. This report contains detailed research results that serve as the basis for the IFSH Policy Brief 5/20: “A Climate for Change in the UNSC? Member States’ Approaches to the Climate-Security Nexus” (Hardt 2020). 4 A Climate for Change in the UN Security Council? Funding This research report and the related policy brief (Hardt 2020) contain the main research results from the project “The role of climate change in security conceptions and perceptions of the UNSC member states,” which was carried out in cooperation with the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH) and the Research Group Climate Change and Security (CLISEC) at University of Hamburg. The project was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. 5 IFSH Research Report #005 1. Introduction The world is facing the dramatic implications associated with climate change – ranging from vulnerability, instability and poverty, to statehood loss, violent conflict, global health effects, forced displacements and the increased intensity and frequency of hydrological disasters, to threats to the future of humanity itself (e.g. UNGA 2009c, b; UNSC 2011). In response the UN Secretary-General António Guterres (2019) has warned, “Let us not mince words: the climate crisis is a race against time for the survival of our civilization, a race that we are losing” and urged decisive action. The need for coordinated state and UN actions to successfully address the multiple security threats emanating from climate change – referred to here as the climate-security nexus – has also been expressed by several UN institutions (UNEP 2011; UNDP 2019), and the 2018 creation of the UN Group of Friends on Climate Security and the Climate Security Mechanism illustrates both the mounting concern among the wider UN family and the growing political agenda of the climate-security nexus. Despite these multiple calls for action, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) – the international institution most relevant to the issue and with the mandate to maintain international peace and security according to the UN Charter – has thus far refrained from officially recognizing the multiple implications that climate change has on security. Debate on this issue dates back to the year 2007, when the question was first posed. One of the reasons a consensus has never been reached on this issue is the fact that member states view the UNSC through the lens of diverging individual positions, political concerns, and different understandings of and approaches to security. Moreover, various discussions are repeatedly hampered by the complexity of different concerns, ranging from conflicts, injustice and threats to future generations to questions of adequate responses within contemporary institutional settings and the relationship between the UNSC and national sovereignty. This research report addresses the growing political agenda of the climate- security nexus by engaging with the member states’ seemingly disparate, scattered positions and approaches in order to make them more accessible. The central questions are whether and how the current 15 members (see Figure) perceive and address climate change in relation to security and approach the so-called climate-security nexus within a broad spectrum of policies and 6 A Climate for Change in the UN Security Council? practices. To this end, the report draws on the research results of the project “The role of climate change in security conceptions and perceptions of the UNSC member states”, which was carried out by the authors in cooperation with a large international network of interdisciplinary and country-specialized partner scientists. Figure 1: 2020 UNSC Member States Source: Elaborated by the authors based on the UN (n.d.). To date, this report is the only systematic and standardized analysis that detects and compares the 15 UNSC member states’ positions on this question (see Zhou 2017; Scott and Ku 2018). It relies on a broad range of official primary sources: member state government policies, various ministry documents (such as security strategies, military doctrines, policy frameworks and presidential orders), UNSC documents and interdisciplinary academic literature on the climate-security nexus. It roughly covers the period from 2007 through April 2020 with a particular emphasis on recent events, and it includes member state activities at the domestic, regional and international levels as well as their corresponding positions in the UNSC. The analysis is informed by a broad approach to Security, Peace and Conflict Studies and the literature on the climate-security nexus. This research aims 7 IFSH Research Report #005 to contribute to the question of whether and how climate and security politics converge at the national and international level and therefore places the analysis in the context of existential threats and the ongoing planetary climate emergency as well as urgent calls for action from the Earth System Sciences (Rockström et al. 2009; IPCC 2018, 2019; Lenton et al 2019; Steffen et al. 2020), scientific networks (Club of Rome 2020; Ripple et al. 2019; Hagedorn et al. 2019), and youth (Friday For Future, e.g. Thunberg 2018) and broader civil society (e.g. Extinction Rebellion) protests. The research was carried out through the lens of four main research foci that structure the analysis and provide an overview of how the member states acknowledge, describe and approach the linkages between climate change and security. The first research focus detects a) whether and how the ministries of defense and the military – the so-called traditional security sector – acknowledge and approach climate change. The second research focus detects b) how other state actors (e.g. heads of state and various ministries) include and/or address the connections between climate change and security.